HMong Economic Advancement & Capacity Building Research Projects

HALED conducts research, the HMong Economic Advancement & Capacity Building Research, to increase understanding of the socio-economic needs of the Hmong and immigrant business community. These research helps create solutions and build organizational capacity to eliminate the systemic and cultural barriers identified in our findings. One of the challenges facing Hmong and other minorities is exclusion from genuine participation in organizations' leadership and decision-making process regarding economic priorities and allocation of community resources. However, success in entrepreneurship requires diverse networks to facilitate information flow, such as timely and reliable information on emerging market opportunities, available technical support, and overall entrepreneurial support systems in their communities and beyond. 

HALED's approach to closing the wealth gap addresses the social determinates of health and barriers to wealth building. We acknowledge the history, discrimination, and systems that have kept people of color from creating, building, and maintaining wealth and understand that programs and initiatives must explicitly target affected and vulnerable communities, particularly those with a high population(s) of color. In addition, we value collaborations from community partners and know that equity cannot be produced from a singular source. Lastly, we believe in achieving long-term success; we must incorporate equity and inclusion into high-performance metrics.